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Watered Down Travel Ban

I have some friends and family who supported President Trump from early on in the process. From time to time they will ask me when I will admit that I was wrong about him. "If Trump does x... If Trump gets y... If Trump supports a policy that results in z... will you admit that you were wrong?" My answer is always "no", because I wasn't wrong. To be clear, I could be wrong in practical application, but that isn't what an election is about. Elections are about theory and speculation and, generally speaking about judging records. Trump had no record to speak of, and his history of stances on issues was all over the map. I opposed his candidacy for several major reasons, all of which are proven valid in this single issue we now refer to as the "travel ban". Here were my reasons.

Fraudulent Rant by Judge Jeanine

If you're not familiar with Justice with Judge Jeanine, it is a show on the FOX News Network starring Jeanine Pirro. She is known for her over-the-top rants where she serves up gobs of fresh red meat for her largely hard right wing audience. While it's not unusual for her to be a little fast and loose with the facts, she has been known to occasionally return from the break with a correction from her producers. Last night, however, there was no such correction to an outright lie she told on the show, and the matter being discussed should have (at the very least) contained a disclaimer from the host. I would cut her some slack, but as a former prosecutor and judge, she should be well aware of what proper protocol should have been here.

Wake The Hell Up, GOP!

It's not cute anymore, Republicans. The President of the United States is completely detached from reality, and you can't fix that. You can't cover it up, you can't explain it away, and let me make this as clear as I possibly can for you. You cannot possibly undo the damage you are doing to the party brand by trying to pretend this man is anything other than completely unhinged. I'm watching Sean Hannity borrow guests from the Alex Jones show in an attempt to bolster Trump's conspiratorial claims. I'm seeing relatively mainstream conservatives make themselves look like the crazed fringes of the paranoid right wing. Don't believe me? Look at this.

These words rang out time and again from Donald Trump during the Presidential campaign. "We're going to build a wall," Trump would exhort his rally audiences. He would then ask them who is going to pay for the wall? "Mexico!", they would yell back. As President, Trump signed an executive order to get the wall started. This lead many people to proclaim that he was keeping his campaign promise. However, the President has asked Congress to pay for the wall with the promise that he would find a way to get the money from Mexico at some point in the future. Then the Administration floated the idea of a 20% tax on Mexican imports. Now before we get into that, let's discuss the notion of keeping promises.

As Trump has said, the level of violence in Chicago is through the roof. Last month, they had 40 murders in 22 days. 6 people were shot at a memorial for another victim of the gun violence on Wednesday. Despite last years spike in the murder rate, this year has gotten off to an even more violent start, with more murders-to-date than the city had seen in nearly 20 years. It's sad to see what is going on there, and President Trump has even talked about sending federal law enforcement to clean the mess up. One would think that with all of this violence and mayhem, the President wouldn't feel the need to invent murders that didn't happen. One would be wrong.

Back during the election process Donald Trump brought this up, and my Facebook friends who supported him started beating me over the head with this study from the PEW Research Center. Why? Because despite being a Republican, I reject the notion of widespread voter fraud. So Trump brings up the conclusion of this study, and it starts a chain reaction among his supporters. "Try to deny it now, Steve." At the time, I told the lovely Ramona that this is what truly bothers me about Trump. I expect the average guy on the street to misunderstand what some of these studies are saying, but for a Presidential Candidate this is pretty basic stuff. So, allow me to lay out my case again why Trump is wrong and I was right, and this time I will have a little affirmation from those in the know.

Yes, it's Super Bowl time again, and you know what that means. It's time to ponder the age-old question. Is Tom Brady the greatest quarterback of all time? No, not that one. Is Bill Belichick the greatest coach to ever walk an NFL sideline? As if. Can anyone stop the New England Patriots? Keep guessing. Are the Patriots cheating again? Do large, hairy mammals defecate in woodland areas? I digress. On to the real, pressing question perplexing modern America. One that likely has no discernible answer, and has left Patriots fans angry and incredulous. How did the only state in the Union where every single county went for Hillary Clinton became the football home of a bunch of Trump supporters? I don't know, but they hate it so I'm loving it.

I swear to you, I decided to start this new category yesterday. It's called "Trump Tracker", and it was my intent to track the lies of Donald Trump here to the best of my ability with the limited time I have. Right on cue, here comes Kellyanne Conway entering a new phrase into our Lexicon. "Alternative facts" as she put it, and Chuck Todd's reply could not possibly have been any better. "Alternative facts aren't facts, they are falsehoods." Well said. There is a phenomenon with Trump and a percentage of his supporters, where they seem to believe that they could wish things to be true and make it so. However, facts are stubborn things, and any alternative to a fact is by definition not factual.

In the Republican Primaries, Trump's rivals tried to pick him off early by pointing out that Trump had donated to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats. Not to be outdone, Trump quickly countered that he had donated to most of the Republicans on stage as well. While a couple of them declared themselves to not have been recipients of Trump's cash, another one was brazen enough to take the opportunity to ask for another donation. Trump was one step ahead of them. As an outsider, he knew he could expose their corruption, while even bragging about taking part in it, yet use it to tarnish them and escaped unscathed. Here is how he explained how Washington works, and how he played the system.

This election cycle, we have heard a lot about "Sanctuary Cities" and their disregard for the law when it comes to illegal immigration. Donald Trump made dealing with these cities a campaign issue, promising to crack down on them and make them comply with federal immigration enforcement. This was a popular issue with many of his supporters, but in talking with them it became increasingly clear that many of them have no idea what a sanctuary city is, what they do, and how this relates to federal immigration law enforcement. Some of them think that these cities go so far as to harbor illegals and protect them from federal enforcement agents. I wanted to make an attempt at clearing the air on what it is exactly that these cities do.

Perhaps you may have seen this headline from InfoWars and wondered how much truth there was to it. It makes a bold and powerful claim about one of the last acts of the Obama Presidency. "Obama Quietly Signs The ‘Countering Disinformation And Propaganda Act’ Into Law Just like that, the US Ministry of Truth is officially born", it reads. By searching the headline, you can find numerous instances of the article that are all copies and pastes of the original writing, so it is hard to definitively state who the original source of this article really is, but the larger question would be, simply put, is it true? Spoiler alert. The simple answer is "no". It is loosely based in fact then expanded upon with falsehoods. For starters though, let's look at the definition of the two words.

More From The Axis

Watered Down Travel Ban

I have some friends and family who supported President Trump from early on in the process. From time to time they will ask me when I will admit that I was wrong about him. "If Trump does x... If Trump gets y... If Trump supports a policy that results in z... will you admit that you were wrong?" My answer is always "no", because I wasn't wrong. To be clear, I could be wrong in practical application, but that isn't what an election is about. Elections are about theory and speculation and, generally speaking about judging records. Trump had no record to speak of, and his history of stances on issues was all over the map. I opposed his candidacy for several major reasons, all of which are proven valid in this single issue we now refer to as the "travel ban". Here were my reasons.

Fraudulent Rant by Judge Jeanine

If you're not familiar with Justice with Judge Jeanine, it is a show on the FOX News Network starring Jeanine Pirro. She is known for her over-the-top rants where she serves up gobs of fresh red meat for her largely hard right wing audience. While it's not unusual for her to be a little fast and loose with the facts, she has been known to occasionally return from the break with a correction from her producers. Last night, however, there was no such correction to an outright lie she told on the show, and the matter being discussed should have (at the very least) contained a disclaimer from the host. I would cut her some slack, but as a former prosecutor and judge, she should be well aware of what proper protocol should have been here.

Wake The Hell Up, GOP!

It's not cute anymore, Republicans. The President of the United States is completely detached from reality, and you can't fix that. You can't cover it up, you can't explain it away, and let me make this as clear as I possibly can for you. You cannot possibly undo the damage you are doing to the party brand by trying to pretend this man is anything other than completely unhinged. I'm watching Sean Hannity borrow guests from the Alex Jones show in an attempt to bolster Trump's conspiratorial claims. I'm seeing relatively mainstream conservatives make themselves look like the crazed fringes of the paranoid right wing. Don't believe me? Look at this.